INNOVANT

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Enterprise Solution Architect at BlueGistics

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

BlueGistics is a consulting and technology company specialized in transportation management systems (TMS), especially with Blue Yonder TMS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire INNOVANT to accomplish?

• Technical expertise
• Shared values
• Flexibility

SOLUTION

How did you find INNOVANT?

Referral

Why did you select INNOVANT over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from INNOVANT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The scope of Innovant’s work consisted of providing a team with the capability to: Perform data mappings and build data pipelines sourcing information from SFTP folders and/or blob storage. Incorporate business logic and conditions within the pipelines. Conduct pipeline debugging and troubleshooting. Leverage knowledge of Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate for an integration project between transportation tools. The main deliverables were the design of three pipelines: Excel → DatabaseDatabase → Transportation Tool 1Transportation Tool 1 → Database → Transportation Tool 2

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The pipeline deliverables represent the first and most tangible evidence of success. In addition, the collaboration was validated through the evaluations conducted between our internal team and the Innovant team, as well as through direct feedback from the client.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Their project management has been very effective. Communication is close and transparent, and so far all deliverables have been completed within the estimated timelines and with the expected quality. Whenever a misunderstanding has arisen, it has been quickly resolved thanks to the strong communication between teams.

What was your primary form of communication with INNOVANT?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What impressed us the most was, on one hand, their flexibility in finding the right resources to meet our expectations, and on the other, their strong work culture and close collaboration. This combination provided the confidence needed to expand our partnership.

Are there any areas for improvement or something INNOVANT could have done differently?

So far, we are satisfied with the work provided.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the General Director of ISTRAM

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software development for the design and construction monitoring of civil engineering projects 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire INNOVANT to accomplish? 

• Architecture
• Frontend

SOLUTION

How did you find INNOVANT?

inbound

Why did you select INNOVANT over others? 

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned 

How many teammates from INNOVANT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

INNOVANT's advice consisted of an analysis of the application architecture, design pattern, programming interface and other items of the new application being built. Once the initial analysis was complete, a series of suggestions were made regarding the architecture, a change in the design pattern and programming interface, as well as other more specific and complex issues to make the application being built much better and more scalable. This series of recommendations does not stop there, as the INNOVANT team is 100% involved on a day-to-day basis to ensure the project's success. Another part of the collaboration is support for the user interface, with assistance in applications such as Figma, in the use of other applications such as Telerik, and participation in UX and UI.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Within our organisation, there was a great deal of fear of change and uncertainty due to a lack of knowledge and not knowing which path to choose for change. There was also a lack of confidence after several contacts and several employees who led the change. The arrival of INNOVANT was a great success. They uncovered several uncertainties and showed us a clear path to follow that convinced all employees. The progress we are seeing now shows us that it was one of the best decisions in the company's more than 30 years of existence. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Both the technical and administrative sides are in constant contact with us. Even INNOVANT's technical leader is responsible for supervising the project, being involved on a day-to-day basis and participating in more administrative meetings. It is not the typical company where the leader attends the first meeting and then never shows up again. At INNOVANT, they are there from start to finish and in contact practically every day.

What was your primary form of communication with INNOVANT? 

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App 

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The great leader at INNOVANT and his entire technical team always have the right technician or the best solution. Nothing is left to chance; everything was carried out with the utmost safety and confidence, leaving nothing to improvisation.

Are there any areas for improvement or something INNOVANT could have done differently?

To date, after three months of collaboration, we have not found anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Kreiva Digital

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Kreiva Digital is a specialized company dedicated to crafting tailor-made digital solutions. We focus on developing custom websites and software to drive innovation and growth for our clients. Additionally, we offer digital marketing services to help businesses achieve their online objectives. At Kreiva Digital, we blend creativity and technology to deliver exceptional solutions that power success in the digital realm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire INNOVANT to accomplish?

• Custom Software Development

SOLUTION

How did you find INNOVANT?

Referral

Why did you select INNOVANT over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from INNOVANT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

INNOVANT helped us achieve the implementation of a custom native platform. They were responsible for UX/UI design and coding.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The team had excellent communication and a strong commitment to meeting the agreed-upon deadlines. The organization was very effective, and we were able to work with great synergy.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Very responsive, willing to work alongside us. They stayed in communication, providing us with regular updates

What was your primary form of communication with INNOVANT?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The team's experience and human values stood out. We had the opportunity to meet in person and visit their facilities to get to know the company and the team

Are there any areas for improvement or something INNOVANT could have done differently?

In software development, unexpected challenges often arise, and each project teaches us valuable lessons to consider. Nevertheless, the team was able to overcome each of them successfully.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a VP for a Technology Consulting Company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INNOVANT, and what were your goals?

Our company had a need to rapidly scale up our Software Engineers for a client with a tight deadline. The additional project work was expected to be temporary and thus we were looking for vendors that provided flexible Staff Augmentation.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed 5-10 Staff Augmentation vendors. Many companies act as a passthrough, simply posting a job and handing off the Software Engineer to you. Innovant was different. Their Software Engineers are employees of the company and they heavily invest in their training and well-being. Their placement process was very hands on and felt tailored to our needs.

In addition, Innovant specialized in the exact technologies we were looking for (.NET and Angular). This made onboarding simple and painless. Finally their executive team had Software Engineering experience. We felt as though we could go deep into technical discussions/needs and they would fully understand.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our project was to build a custom budgeting tool for the pharmaceutical industry. Pharma and CRO companies can use this tool to fully customize their bidding/pricing process, making it easy to cost out a study.

The team consisted of:

• 3-6 Software Engineers
• 1-2 Quality Assurance Engineers
• 1 Architect, 1 Business Analyst
• 1 Project Manager.

1-3 of the Software Engineers came from Innovant*. Our team scaled up/down throughout the project. The technologies used were .NET Core, Angular, Postgres, and Azure

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Over the course of the project we worked with a total of 3 Software Engineers. 2 were Senior Software Engineers and 1 was a Mid-Level Software Engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was successfully delivered and we are in the process of starting on a new phase. The Innovant Software Engineers performed exceptionally well. Their velocity was consistent with our in house Software Engineers (and some times even better). They also regularly contributed to our technical discussions and felt very integrated with the team.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used our own Project Managers and thus the Innovant Software Engineers worked directly with our team and processes. We developed our code using the Agile methodology and utilized Azure Dev Ops (ADO) for work item management, code repositories and deployment tools (pipelines).

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What impressed me most was how they have structured their business. They really strive for partnerships, frequently reach out for feedback, and are very flexible (on dates, scaling up/down, etc).

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The only thing I'd like to see from them is a quicker turn around time for placing Software Engineers. The first two Software Engineers were placed almost immediately, but the one felt like it took a bit of time to transition. This might be due to the size of their company (although I hear they are scaling up). In addition, their Mid-Level Software Engineer wasn't a good fit for our company (which Innovant was helpful in attempting to replace)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.              

I’m the director of DOITS, a software development company that’s based in Uruguay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with INNOVANT?

We needed to develop a specific component for analytics that had to be integrated into our platform, but we didn’t have enough resources to do that. Hence, we hired INNOVANT to develop it. The feature would enable our users to make dynamic analyses within our system. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started off by having a kickoff meeting, during which we defined the scope of the project. After that, they worked with a designer and proposed a series of wireframes for our review. Then, they improved the design of the wireframes based on our feedback. From there, their team proceeded with the development and implementation of the specific functionality. After validating the prototype they built, they came back to us with the final version. They used React for development.

We plan to continue working with INNOVANT on other projects.

What was the team composition? 

We work with two people from their company: the CEO and a developer.

How did you come to work with INNOVANT?

They were recommended to us by a colleague who was also working on a project with them at the time.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent about $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2022, and our engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve yet to implement the functionality, and it still hasn’t been tested by users, so we don’t have any specific metrics to share. However, the quality of the product is very good; we haven’t encountered any issues. 

How did INNOVANT perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done a good job from a project management standpoint. They constantly provide us with updates on the project’s progress, including the number of hours invested. For communication, we mainly use email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their dedication to our project —  they spend a lot of time and effort to understand our needs and provide the best solution possible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything that they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to define your goals clearly so that they will be able to execute your project without any issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Genai is a company specialized on optimize businesses using advanced analytics, ML and AI technologies together with big data tools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INNOVANT, and what were your goals?

One of our clients built a PoC to validate compliance in Technical Documents. For different reasons, this project stopped and there was a need to resume with a new team.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We contact INNOVANT because they had all the skills needed to bring this project to fruition. We needed a team with different capacities, from UI to backend, AI and ML, Graphic Design and DevOps. INNOVANT fit our needs.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Once the scope was defined, we plan the project in 4 sprints, first sprint was a setup sprint of 1 week, then two other sprints of 2-weeks and a final 1-week sprint. We work following an Agile approach. They not only finish the deliverables on time on each sprint but also they developed some other out of scope work which make our client quite happy.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 5 people in the core team, including a backend Python developer, a front end Angular developer, a ML/AI specialist, a Graphic Designer and a PO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The tool reach a state where the client was confident enought to present the PoC to two potential clients of the tool.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We follow an Agile approach, we use Jira to create tickets and communicate progress. We had several weekly standup meetings and receive a time report end of week.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We had direct access to the team, they handled different aspects of the project and we delegated almost the entire project with minor involvement.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing to report to be frank.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager at Infocorp, a software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INNOVANT?

We needed help with custom software development, especially around creating highly technical components for open banking. Our main challenge was figuring out how to integrate easily many APIs into our platform to meet the open-banking standards that our platform wasn’t meeting.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

INNOVANT has played a critical role in our research on open banking. They’ve helped us create and define the strategy around the technical aspects of open banking for our product. Their software development efforts involve various technologies like C# and .NET, and they’ve also used other open-source technologies like Scala and Java.

Aside from the development portion of the project, INNOVANT’s team has brought new ideas and design perspectives on how we could model those solutions, and they’ve been in charge of the design work as well.

The deliverables they’ve provided us with are documents and proof of concepts. Additionally, we’ve worked with them on UX assignments, and they’ve helped us enhance some of our workflows.

How did you come to work with INNOVANT?

INNOVANT was recommended by someone else in the industry.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2020, and our engagement is ongoing. We will continue to use them as a strategic partner to evaluate and overcome similar challenges.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Working with INNOVANT has allowed us to use a variety of technologies for our product, which has changed our perspective. Our initial objective was to bring a partner who could work independently from our team so that they could bring a fresh perspective, and they’ve been excellent at that. Their work has been reflected in the evolution of our product, and we’re very satisfied with that.

This has been a very challenging project for them because they’re a small company, but they’ve found great success. They’ve provided us with cost-efficient alternatives, helping us achieve what we wanted.

How did INNOVANT perform from a project management standpoint?

INNOVANT has performed very well. Although the timeline for each assignment varies, their excellent communication helps us set up our expectations accordingly, and every part of the project has been handled very well. Additionally, they’re very communicative around challenges, which is very valuable.

To communicate efficiently, one of our teammates acts as the liaison between our team and their team to discuss technical issues. We communicate via Microsoft Teams and emails, and we have a weekly standing call.

What did you find most impressive about them?

INNOVANT is great at coming up with creative solutions for the challenges of the financial industry.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be good if they increased their team so that we could ask for more.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to be able to work in an agile development environment. Furthermore, INNOVANT works well on their own, but they’re very inquisitive about the important things that need to be tackled, so you will need key people within your team capable of answering their questions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a product owner at a company that develops software for the financial sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INNOVANT?

We needed to update our website because it had been developed using Silverlight, and this Microsoft plugin is now discontinued.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

INNOVANT created a new version of our website — one that can work on any website. We decided to update the site on HTML5, and their team worked with us to modernize both the coding and graphic interface.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three developers and a project manager.

How did you come to work with INNOVANT?

One of their leaders, who was working with another company at the time, had worked in the development of our original site. Based on that, we knew they would have the expertise to take on this project. They were also referred by a colleague, which cemented our impression that they would be the best choice.

How much have you invested with them?

The initial project cost $40,000. Taking into account all of the many additional hours afterward, the total comes to around $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2019, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

INNOVANT complied with all of our requirements with no issue. We evaluated the site’s performance by consulting our clients, and we received an acceptance rate of 100%. That was our main success metric for the project.

How did INNOVANT perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t have any issues regarding the budget and worked hours. They met all of the deadlines, and, we didn’t experience any setbacks. 

Nowadays, we use Jira to manage new requirements and report incidents. We also communicate through email, conference calls, and in-person meetings, if needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their customer focus is very impressive. They’re always willing to tend to our needs, and they solve any issues that come up even if it’s beyond the scope of work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing stands out to us. Every IT company experiences an issue with resource migration, so that wasn’t a big problem for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very straightforward and focus on your final needs. INNOVANT is a very solid company, so by doing that and maintaining good communications, you can achieve your goals. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Pelican Point Advisors. We’re an air-based analytics dashboard for medium to small-size businesses. We integrate with financial software and operational software to bring data to life. We use that data to create workflow processes that simplify the challenges that businesses have.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INNOVANT?

I needed a development team that was flexible, as my business tends to pivot a lot. We’re constantly dealing with small and medium-sized businesses, so we customize quite a bit to help them. Whatever team I hired would have to be very flexible.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

INNOVANT designed and developed a mobile and desktop environment, building and engineering all the code.

What is the team composition?

I typically work with the CEO, and then there are a number of project managers, as well as teams underneath those project managers who I don’t work directly with.

How did you come to work with INNOVANT?

We had a two-month vetting process to ensure that their company fit the bill. I originally heard of them from my brother, wh knew someone that had used them to build their platform. They were a good word-of-mouth recommendation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $500,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They help us reach our ever-changing goals.

How did INNOVANT perform from a project management standpoint?

I meet with the CEO once a week and with the project managers three times a week. Trello helps us stay in touch, and we have video calls on google. Slack allows us to communicate instantly, as well as Zeppelin.

If you work with anyone for six years, you will begin to understand them better. This is one of the challenges we have working with offshore developers: making sure the communication styles and lines match up. We’ve grown to understand each other very well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been excellent in being flexible. Additionally, their willingness to truly understand the project that we’re working on stands out. They invest lots of time upfront to dive deep into the main goals of the work, versus diving into the development right away and having to invest that time and money on the backend. I’ve worked with people who do just that, and they often underperform and cost more money.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve watched their growth over the course of six years and they’ve made strong improvements on the communication side. It was a bit difficult initially, but they’ve worked with me to overcome that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Regardless of the vendor, do you due diligence to ensure that you’re working with a firm who invests time on the frontend to truly understand your goals before moving into development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Brain Power is an educational technology company. We develop applications that help students, especially those with learning disabilities or are on the autism spectrum, learn better. We also provide other types of tools to help teachers work with these types of students. 

I am the COO, and my role is to run all of the divisions of the company, including sales, marketing, software development, finance, and administration.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INNOVANT?

We weren’t able to grow as quickly as we needed because we were having trouble with finding good software developers and engineers. Even when we do find the right talent, that person only ends up staying with us for 3–6 months because a bigger company will offer them more money. We ended up looking into contractors and offshore companies to build a global team, and that’s why we hired INNOVANT.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by augmenting our internal staff with people from INNOVANT until, eventually, our entire development team consisted purely of their software developers. 

Now, on top of building out our applications, they run our entire agile process and handle what a product manager typically does. They collect and document requirements, conduct testing, and oversee our DevOps and deployments. 

It’s a very collaborative process in that they meet with our senior members to discuss ideas for a new application or a new feature. We tell them about our vision, and they provide us with options for the implementation. They tell us which solutions are faster, and they bring up questions and different perspectives about any feature we want to create. 

What is the team composition?

We started with 2–3 developers, but now we’re working with 12 people from INNOVANT. 

How did you come to work with INNOVANT?

We evaluated different offshore providers, and INNOVANT was one of them. They were actually referred to us by one of our advisors. We liked their experience and the references that they had, but the biggest deciding factor was the strong educational background of their software engineers. They don’t just go out and hire freelancers like a staffing agency; they’re actually a company that hires and trains their own people. 

We were also taken by the fact that they’re in our time zone. We knew that that would make it easier for us to work together, so we decided to engage them. 

How much have you invested with them?

Over the course of two and half years, we’ve invested around $1.2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

With INNOVANT involved, we’ve not experienced any downtime in our software development. Our productivity has doubled ever since we’ve taken them on board. 

How did INNOVANT perform from a project management standpoint?

We originally intended to have a VP oversee and manage their team, but we realized that INNOVANT already has their own management structure in place. We’ve since relied on them completely. They now independently manage all of their agile processes, reporting, and development, testing, and production environments through AWS. We don’t have the need for any technical staff anymore. 

We mainly use Jira as our project management tool, and we conduct our daily stand-up meetings through Google Meet. For day-to-day communication, we use Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed by the quality that INNOVANT brings to the table. Some of our past overseas contractors would submit code that needed a lot of reviewing and fixing, but INNOVANT is able to maintain and follow good coding standards because of their management structure. They really think about the architecture of our applications and make sure that these are maintainable in the future. I’ve never seen that level of service where the work is thoroughly managed from CTO to developer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We did have one hiccup at the beginning of the engagement, but it’s more on us than them. Apart from INNOVANT, we were also using the services of several independent contractors from other countries. INNOVANT offered to manage those people instead of having them report to us, but we kind of resisted that recommendation. 

Those contractors now report to INNOVANT, and we realized that it was actually the right choice. I think we probably should’ve followed their advice sooner. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t try to micromanage everything. Especially when bringing in a development partner, it can be hard to let go of control since it’s your product. However, you can trust this team. The more you let them be autonomous, the better they’ll be able to come up with a high-quality product.